successor was designated by virtue of superior dignity, or chosen by suffrage when there were several of Ugg Boots Clearance equal rank. Sometimes, however, this choice was decided by an appeal to arms. Like other ancient hierarchies, they were divided into several classes; but there is some difference of opinion as to the exact number of such, as well as the character and offices of each. Strabo and Ammianus Marcellinus mention three, viz. Bards, Vates, and Druids; Diodorus Siculus only two—Bards and Druids, which latter class embraced apparently the Vates. To the Druids proper was assigned the highest rank, and they exercised in some sense government and superintendence over the others; were the depositaries of the will of the gods, the judges and religious teachers, who, as Strabo says, Trpoc ry ipttmo\oyta Kai rt/v t'l^iK^v ejiXoootyiav aoKovot. The vates were, according to the same authority, priests and physiologists; according to Marcellinus, only the latter, seeking to discover the order Cheap Ugg Boots and secrets, of nature. Strabo says the bards were minstrels and poets. Marcellinus states that they "sang the brave deeds of illustrious men
in heroic verses, with sweet modulations of the lyre;" and Diodorus, that "they sang songs of praise or Moncler Outlet invectives to the accompaniment of a sort of lyre."Very little is known with certainty of their origin or history. If in their secret archives the ancient Druids kept any written or other records of their order, none survived the overthrow of their power and influence by the Romans, while the few extant notices of them by Greek and Roman authors are very brief and unsatisfactory, especially in this respect. The views of modern writers can claim no higher authority than speculations based on grounds more or less probable, yet not certain. Some fragmentary Welsh poems, known from the peculiar form of composition as the Triads, are Ugg Boots Clearance supposed to preserve some of the traditions current among the Welsh bards in regard to the history, doctrines, and customs of the Druids; and, according to these triads, they came into Gaul from the East, during the first invasion or migration of the Kymry under Hu-Cadarn, or Hu the Mighty. The opinion that they were of Eastern origin, and made their appearance in Britain and Gaul at a very early
period, is supported by the similarity of their doctrines, rites, and architectural monumonts to those of Christian Louboutin Sale certain early Oriental nations. The Druidical order has been by various authors connected with the Persian, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, and the Phoenician priestly caste, and the Pythagorean fraternity; while their choice of groves, especially of oak, as places of residence and worship, and their pillars and altars of rough stone, are deemed, by some, striking coincidences with the usages of patriarchal times as described in the Pentateuch. Cresar speaks of Britain as the parent seat of Druidism, affirming that those in Gaul who sought a fuller knowledge of it went thither to learn. This statement accords well with the theory of their Phoenician origin, since opportunity and motive for their early appearance in Britain may be found in that early and extensive commercial intercourse between the British Isles and Phoenician merchants in search of tin, to which we probably owe the name of Britain, i. e. the land of tin—according to some, from the Celtic bruit, tin, and fcm, land; according to others, from a Uggs Clearance Phoenician word, whose
